From time to time, and sadly not infrequently, media publishes information about infants and toddlers left in vehicle unattended. Sometimes, kids are lucky enough to be timely saved, sometimes not. It seems that every summer there are news reports of children dying when they are left behind in a closed vehicle. If a baby or young child is, inadvertently or purposefully, left in a vehicle, the child can quickly be in danger of serious heat-related problems. Even if windows are cracked open, the vehicle is parked in the shade, and the outside temperatures seems temperate to an adult, the inside vehicle temperature can quickly become unbearable to a child who is trapped in a car seat and who can do absolutely nothing to cool himself down. Tragic stories seem to occur every year of well-meaning but strssed and busy parents who forget to take their sleeping baby from the car, and the child pays for this mistake with his or her life. So, as it appears, this is the problem that needs at least a technical solution, and the aim of the present disclosure is to offer such a solution.
Known from U.S. Pat. No. 7,348,889 issued on Mar. 25, 2008, to Joseph J. Monzo et al. is a system and method to warn that a child has been left unattended in the vehicle for a pre-set period of time after the ignition has been turned off. The system includes a sensing device to detect if a child is in the infant seat, an ignition detection device to detect that the ignition has been turned off, a timing microprocessor device to time the pre-set period of time and to generate an alarm and a page, a prerecorded voice message and speaker, a reset button to reset the timing of the pre-set period of time if desired by the caregiver, and an FM antenna with a manual page button.
Disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 6,104,293 issued on Aug. 15, 2000, to Marc A. Rossi is an apparatus provided for warning when a child has been left in an infant seat and a vehicle as been turned off. The apparatus includes an occupant detection mechanism for detecting the presence of an occupant within an infant seat located within a vehicle; an ignition detection mechanism for detecting the state of the vehicle's ignition system; a control unit for generating an alarm signal when the occupant detection mechanism detects the presence of an occupant within the infant seat and the ignition detection mechanism detects that the vehicle's ignition system has been turned from an “on” state to an “off” state; and an alarm units for generating an alarm in response to the alarm signal. The components of the apparatus can be located within the infant seat, within the vehicle or combined within the infant seat and the vehicle.
A need still exists for a vehicle child seat safety system that would be able to not only draw the attention of the driver and passersby to the child left unattended in a hot vehicle but also would provide the access to the child so that he/she could be rescued.